Tag Archives: Art

The “Errorist Kabaret” appears before our eyes while walking through the halls of the Istanbul Biennial. It’s a place to get lost in, a meeting point where the errors are converted into something positive and a space for a collective game. Here, the audience is the protagonist. Spect-actors wander through space and become part of the art-work, give it life and complete it with their presence.

Among the worn Cultural Institutions, the cabaret is a haven highlighting the contradictions between what one possesses and what one wants. In the “Errorist Kabaret” one can always drink, smoke, eat, vomit, play, laugh and cry.

It is the ideal place for forbidden practices, the birthplace of the ideologies of the new millennium. It’s a space to confess love secrets and to discuss the errors of international economics and politics. It differs from other local shows, in that the “Errorist Kabaret” allows spect-actors to change sides with other players, and to interact with artworks and objects.

Here bottles can think, tables can chat with paintings, glasses can drink people and ashtrays are always full of poetry.

The room is full; there is a special show today. The troupe on stage is bustling. There are magicians, illusionists, singers, comedians, mime artists and representatives of the most diverse currents of thought.

They whisper that the show is about to begin.

The curtains are open:

Act One: The desire of the object.From a corner of the room, Bertolt Brecht smiles to Pirate Jenny. King Ubu raises quietly his glass to toast and drinks up. Duchamp moves a castle on the chess board and now it’s the lady’s turn at his side.

An anonymous woman climbs onto the stage, smiling at the intellectuals, and exclaims:

Woman: “How can we articulate what we want, if they do not already know?”

The Clowninterrupts: “Good morning, good afternoon, good evening! Welcome to the new millennium. We expect more catastrophes, climatic disasters, pests, viruses and wars everywhere.”

From behind the proscenium The Puppeteerasks: “So, what’s new?

“We enter the Age of Error!” announcesThe Wizardwith his gaze fixed on a table with cards on it.

The Publicrespond in chorus, all at the same time: “It’s the End of Postmodernism?”

Through the window in the background you see the turquoise velvet of the Bosphorus and a huge bridge that joins and separates the two worlds. The red curtains are open and reveal the moon and stars. Some people talk and laugh. Others observe the spectacle in silence. There’s a busy activity in the bar, suggesting an awareness of the errors in the world.

The curtain falls.

Act Two: The Object of Desire.

The lights of the room are switched off. All keep still and their talks are suspended in the air like their thoughts. On the walls of the “Errorist Kabaret” there are twenty paintings. Landscapes and portraits, romantic images romantic riots and historical epic love scenes. The walls of the cabaret suck up smoke, sweat and the scent of imitation perfumes. Murmurs are heard. This time the objects speak.

Suddenly from the bottom, a small painting shouts:

Painting: “We must give life back to art and art back to life!”

Ashtrayon the table responds: “Museum-Mausoleum!”

Cup of Teatalks to Painting: “Listen to me! Do you know who you represent? You must sit down and think about all the sponsors that you advertise!”

Painting: “Really, believe me, every day I wonder… Who am I? Me, who smiled a thousand times. Me, who does not even represent anything to anyone who sees me or passes by without even looking at me.”

Bottle of Wine: “I feel empty, almost a waste.”

Cup of Tea: “I do not understand how you can feel empty, if you have consumed all that gives happiness.”

Bottle of Whiskey: “We have no future because our present is too volatile. We only have risk management.” The bottle smiles and continues. “When there is no love, the substance is delayed. The movement is restrained. It is a kind of alienation from oneself.”

Cup of Tea: “I am broken. Love has turned to an error, and it is here where the movement becomes active… Now I can understand why I am so fragile.”

Bottle of Wine: “You should be happy; don’t you understand? We are there for all their social needs, for their consumerism. We are more important for them, more than they are for themselves. Think! Our weakness is our strength.”

Ashtray: “To consume, consume, and consume! That is the only reason they like us.”

The Chairinterrupts: “We should organize a strike, the objects also have rights!”

At that time all the objects meet. The lights in the cabaret are suddenly turned on. Everything gets illuminated. The Magician enters the scene and announces that the show is about to begin. With his magic stick he touches each and every one of the animated objects.

Out there the night falls on Istanbul. Rumours and secret talks among the moon and the stars are heard coming from the streets. People walk without guidance; they are lost in the darklabyrinths. There are shadows, flags, eyes, megaphones, stones, words and silences that complete the picture.

This may be the beginning or the end, but someone yells from the stage:

-We do not pay entrance fees, we do not have entrances, we do not sell entrance cards!
Who ever wants to enter, can enter. If we decide to climb the scene, we will do it.

Therefore: The show must go on!

The curtain rises and fallscountless times.

(Poetics of “Errorist Theatre” does not invent fictitious scenarios or unilateral conventions. It looks for social scenarios and appropriates them, working them into the scene. It does not matter who acts and who observes: Dramaturgy is created by the succession and simultaneity of errors. Here, there is no assay: the dramatic action results from the map of errors of life.)